


hey man, i love you (but no fucking way)

by andchaos



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, North Dakota is a slur, Post-Season/Series 12, gratuitous use of dennis calling him baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-15 02:55:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14150403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: Dennis will always come back home to Mac, even when neither of them think so. For better or worse, the same wretched parts of them are magnetized together, and no amount of fighting or running away will change it.What happens after Dennis leaves.





	hey man, i love you (but no fucking way)

      1.

Dee says they’re obsessed with one another. Mac thinks the problem is that he and Dennis’s real knack is for fucking each other up.

The day Dennis leaves, Mac spends shut up in his room while he can hear Dennis packing in the rest of the apartment. He lies on his bed and thinks about the last twenty-five years, he wonders who he would be now if he hadn’t had Dennis there to shape him, he wonders if he’d be better or worse off. He thinks that he has two potential future selves: one grown old with Dennis by his side, the other stumbling into age all by himself. Maybe the second him would be a much better version, but he would trade it all, probably, for the room on the other side of his apartment to be filled by his best friend all that time.

He planned on a petty goodbye, one marked by long silences and shut doors. He’s too goddamn selfish for it though, he always has been. He realizes it’s been quiet beyond his bedroom door for awhile now and gets out of bed, wondering if it’s already too late.

When he opens the door, Dennis is standing there, suitcase in one hand and the other limply by his side. He might have been standing there forever now, waiting and debating, never knocking or leaving, endlessly waiting for Mac to come find him.

Mac stills for only a second before crossing the short space between them and wrapping Dennis in his arms, tight and hard. He hears Dennis’s suitcase hit the floor and Dennis hugs him back. He nestles his face into Mac’s neck. They stand there, swaying, for a very long while.

As he holds him, Mac listens. He can hear all the sounds out on the busy Philadelphia streets, the people going all about their day, the cars lined up on the roads. The people in the apartment two floors down are fighting again, and one of their neighbors is having sex. Beneath it all is the quiet, steady sound of Dennis’s breathing, and Mac can hear how it’s a beat off-tempo.

“Don’t go,” he whispers.

As soon as he says it, his insides curl up in on themselves and he hates it, how the words sound desperate and lonely already. More than that, he hates that it breaks the spell around them, and Dennis’s arms relax from their grip around Mac’s back. A second later Mac lets him go too, and Dennis steps away.

“I have to,” Dennis says. He sounds strangely hoarse. “I…It’s just…something I have to do.”

Mac hates the part of himself that thinks how it sounds like it’s just something Dennis has to try out, something he’ll be over and done with soon. He hates the part of himself that hopes.

Mac tries to say something else, but he’s never been very good with finding words. Dennis watches him try for a long time before he touches his palm to Mac’s cheek.

“Don’t be emotional, man,” Dennis says, almost smiling, but it’s low and quiet all the same. “You guys are my best friends, and I mean, Dee’s my twin sister. It’s not like I won’t call. It’s not like I won’t come visit.”

Mac doesn’t say anything. Dennis lets his hand drop.

“You’re choking me up, dude,” says Dennis, laughing humorlessly and breathlessly now. He swipes the back of his hand across a dry cheek. “Come on.”

“Sorry,” Mac says mechanically, even though he isn’t sure he feels it. He doesn’t know what he feels. He paws at his bare cheeks. “Listen, you gotta go. Just, um…call me when you get on the road, okay?”

Checking in, he remembers suddenly. He drops his gaze to the floor. Dennis isn’t going to have time to check in, probably, maybe not even once a day. He knew that, but it’s strange to realize how even the little things will change. He wants to make him promise that he’ll make time, but he doesn’t want to see that promise broken. It will only be worse if they say it aloud.

“Yeah, okay,” Dennis mumbles. “Hey,” and Mac looks up at him again, “c’mere,” and he hugs him again, not as tightly, not as long.

Before he pulls away fully, Mac leans in and ghosts his lips against Dennis’s cheek. Maybe he’s imagining it, but Dennis inclines towards it, just a little bit. Then they both pull back and look at each other for a long time.

“Bye,” Mac says.

Dennis picks up his suitcase. He looks at Mac one more time. He turns and goes out the door.

He isn’t even courteous enough to close it behind him, or maybe he’s just got his hands full, but Mac feels the first pricks of anger when he goes to shut it himself. The apartment feels instantly bigger and more silent and much, much lonelier as soon as he’s shut up alone in it, and Mac wants to kick the wall.

He does, then, hoping it will relieve some of the frustration boiling hot and bubbly inside his stomach. It doesn’t work, so he does it again, and again, and hits it with his fist too. His next kick goes clean through the drywall and he has to yank his foot to get it free, stumbling a bit back once it’s out.

“Fuck,” Mac says. He turns away and drags his hands down his face. He curls them into his hair, tousling the strands free of his gel, and pulls. “Fuck, _fuck_.”

 

 

 

     2.

At first, Dennis does call, usually just to complain about how he’s (poorly) adjusting to his new way of life. Soon, though, even the most cursory of calls drop off into fewer and farther between texts, and then even those go by the wayside eventually. Mac doesn’t prompt him for attention, for once, just answers when Dennis calls and tries not to text first most of the time.

Charlie’s place is dirty and messy and missing a lot of key furniture, but he always is good company and has a lot of shit to get high on, and that’s one of the best things about him: He’s good to be with.

One day Charlie’s messing with his keyboard while Mac drums out beats on his jeans, and Mac’s not thinking about anything except how totally sweet they sound while he tells Charlie about some dude he banged a few nights ago. With the apartment empty, he has license to do it wherever he likes, and however loudly. They did it on the couch and over the kitchen sink and in the shower a couple of times, and by the time the guy finally left well into the next day, every inch of Mac’s body felt like it wanted a deep-tissue massage.

“This is great, dude,” Charlie says. “You know, I thought you’d be stuck in your usual dry spell, but now that you’re out and shit, you’re actually doing pretty well for yourself.”

Mac grins.

“Hell yeah I am! And it’s awesome.” He brings the tube sock full of paint that they’re sharing up to his face again and takes a deep breath. “Holy shit dude, where did you get this?”

Charlie shrugs. “I don’t know, man, where does anyone get anything?”

“Did you steal this from the bar?”

“Hell yeah, man.”

Mac smiles lazily at him. He’s super fucking high. “Sweet.”

They grin at each other. Charlie is still touching the keyboard, although Mac is no longer sure that he’s even trying to make it sound good. He still likes it, though.

An odd ringing cuts through the sounds of them playing. Mac and Charlie look at each other for a long moment. Mac blinks. Charlie starts to laugh.

“I think that’s your phone, dude.”

“Oh, shit.”

Mac scrambles to get it out of his pocket and doesn’t check the caller ID before answering. He tries to focus, but even his own voice sounds slow and stupid when he says hello.

“Mac?”

Mac’s brain turns over slowly.

“Dennis?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Are you — what are you doing? You sound weird.”

“I’m just hanging out with Charlie,” says Mac. Charlie nods from where he’s back to screwing with the keyboard. Mac leans back into the couch cushions. “What’s up?”

“Never mind,” says Dennis, sighing. “I didn’t realize you’d be high already. You’re usually still in the apartment this early.”

Mac shrugs. “It’s empty,” he says by way of explanation.

“I know it is,” says Dennis, a note of frustration creeping into his voice. Honestly Mac could care less right about now. “Look, forget I called.”

“No, wait. Why did you say, ‘never mind’? What did you want to talk about?”

“I’m just…nothing, man. I’m just almost out of meds and needed you to look up my doctor for me. I need his info so I can send my file over to get a new prescription. But it’s fine, I’ll just figure something out. I’ll call Dee or something.”

“Hold on,” says Mac. He sits up, trying to make the gears in his head start to spin again, but they feel rusted to a halt. “I know I have it in my phone somewhere – ”

Charlie pauses the music and watches Mac for a long moment, while Mac scrolls down his contacts until he finds the number for _Doc – Den_ and forwards it in a message to Dennis. He puts the phone back up to his ear. Charlie goes back to playing.

“Hello? Hey, bro, are you still there?”

“Yeah, and I just got your text. Thanks, man.” Dennis breathes out and it sounds a little unsteady, a little relieved. Mac wishes he could see his face, although that probably wouldn’t make it any easier to tell what he’s thinking. “Look, I’m sorry if I’ve been…”

He trails off. Mac waits for him to finish, but he doesn’t say anything more. In fact, he isn’t making any sound at all anymore. Mac lets out the breath for him.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Mac. “I’ll always have your back, Den.”

“I know,” Dennis says, quietly. He clears his throat and adds in a voice more like his normal one, “Thanks again. Talk to you soon.”

Mac hangs up and throws his phone on the couch next to him. Charlie is just looking at him again.

“What?” Mac sighs.

“Nothing,” says Charlie. “From the top?”

Mac picks up the tube sock again.

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

     3.

“You’re needy as shit,” Dennis says, and Mac struggles not to throw his phone against a wall. “You’re pushy and angry and – ”

“You’re a _dick_ ,” Mac growls. An elderly woman passing him glances worriedly back at him over her shoulder, and he tries not to actively snarl at her. “Fuck me for asking one simple question, I haven’t even heard from you in a goddamn week – ”

“You’ve been co-owner of the bar for, what? How many years again is it, Mac? And you still don’t know where I keep the spare keys.”

“That’s because you’re so goddamned controlling, you can’t let anyone else be in charge of _anything_. And don’t tell me shit about being a co-owner, I’m _the_ owner now. I don’t see anyone else stepping up.”

“Frank? Charlie?” Dennis reminds him.

“Like they do anything around Paddy’s,” Mac scoffs. “At least I show up.”

“Always late and usually fuming.”

“That’s better than ditching it completely,” Mac says coldly.

The other end of the line goes silent. Mac stops walking down the road to turn into a small paved area, where he can lean his back against the building there and breathe.

“If we’re just going to fight, I’m gonna go,” Dennis says at last. “I’m sick of this shit.”

Mac doesn’t know if he’s ready to be done fighting or not. Every part of him feels like it’s on fire, and no one can ever calm him down like Dennis could. When Dennis is the one making him angry, and when he’s too far away for them to even make up properly, Mac doesn’t know how to relax.

He just knows that he’s tired of being angry, he’s tired of being sad.

“I really hate you sometimes,” Mac says. He breathes a shaky laugh. “Sometimes I want to fly out there and just claw your fucking eyes out.”

Dennis laughs with him. “Yeah. Me too.”

Mac knocks his head back against the brick wall. There’s a light breeze that feels good on his heated face, and as he stands there, he can feel his heartbeat start to slow and even out. He can hear Dennis breathing steadily on the other end and tries to match its pace. He can’t remember the last time he just listened to Dennis breathe.

“Better?” Dennis asks after a minute.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.” After a pause, he says, “You know, it’s not so bad out here, man. You should come and visit sometime. I’ve got a sweet little set-up, and the couch is big enough that you could crash no problem.”

“I’m surprised you’re not dying out there, to be honest with you,” says Mac. He finally feels stable enough to shrug off the wall and, after a second, start walking again. “The last time you tried to live in a house, you kind of, uh…lost it.”

“Maybe it was the company,” Dennis teases.

Mac snorts, ducking his head. “Like you could do better than me.”

“Somehow, I’m still trying.” Dennis is smiling, Mac can hear it in his voice.

There’s a pause.

“How are things out there, anyway?” Mac ventures after a moment. “You find a new gang to run with and everything?”

He winces as soon as he asks. He doesn’t know that either answer would be more satisfying than sore; he doesn’t know that anything about any of this will eventually stop hurting.

“I’ve been pretty busy,” Dennis says after a pause. “Haven’t really had much time to go out and make friends. Have you guys replaced me yet?”

Mac bites his cheek. He thinks about lying, to spare either of them.

“No,” he admits at last. “Things have been okay, though. Me and Dee have actually picked up most of the slack around the bar, and we’ve got a good rhythm with it now.”

“Dee?” Dennis echoes, incredulous. “Wow, I didn’t know she _could_ be useful.”

“Obviously she still fucks most of it up, but she tries.”

Mac grins. It’s almost weird to rib on Dee; they’re on the same side a lot of the time now. Still, it feels good to be able to fall back on that familiar pattern with Dennis. It’s almost like things haven’t changed.

“Well, I don’t doubt that. She’s unreliable as shit.”

“Yeah. Better than Charlie and Frank, though, for the managerial stuff anyway.”

“I guess.” Dennis pauses again. The silence feels wrong-footed somehow, and Mac wonders how even this sturdy balancing act has been broken. This used to be so easy. “Look man, I’ve got to go. I’ve got a to-do list up to here and two different people screaming for me right now.”

“Oh. Right, yeah, sure. I’m almost at Paddy’s anyway.”

“I’ll call back later this week, alright?”

“Sounds good. See you.”

Dennis has already hung up. Mac shuts his phone off and shoves it deep into his pocket.

Maybe it means he won the break up, so to speak, to know that he’s managing okay and Dennis isn’t. But knowing Dennis is miserable doesn’t help him feel any better after all. There’s a raw aching in Mac’s gut that follows him all the way to the bar, all the way through his shift, and all the way home.

 

 

 

     4.

There’s something very immensely satisfying about _Predator_ and beer nights, maybe just because Mac’s got some guy from the bar going down on him while he watches it. He had still been drinking there at closing time, and Mac figured that his own apartment was as good a place as any to kick him out to. The blowjob itself is lackluster, but the beer is superb, and even a bad blowjob is a still a blowjob. The guy’s trying his hardest, really.

Mac leans his head back on the couch. He’s starting to breathe a little less evenly, just slightly. He takes another sip of his beer to the sound of gunfire from the TV.

The door to the apartment slams open with a loud crash as it hits the opposite wall. The guy scrambles off Mac’s dick and Mac hurries to pull on some boxers. He fumbles for a weapon to bash whoever’s trying to rob him right now, and shit, he hopes this doesn’t turn into a hate crime or something.

Mac finally gets his hands around the heavy lamp on the end table and is up on his feet when the lights flick on. Mac struggles to adjust to the sudden bright.

“Oh, what the fuck. What is this?”

It’s been an incredibly long time since Mac has heard that voice from anywhere but over a crackling phone line. He drops the lamp, and barely flinches when it crashes and cracks on the wood floor.

“Holy shit,” Mac says numbly.

Dennis spreads his arms out, wide. He drops the suitcase in his hand and grins, wide and toothy.

“Hey, man. Miss me?”

Honestly, Mac isn’t sure that he doesn’t want to pick the lamp back up and cave his fucking head in.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, still not moving from his spot by the couch. Dennis’s smile falters and his drops his arms back to his side.

Mac’s guy looks between the two of them, shrugging on the last of his clothes. “Uh – should I go – ?”

“Yeah, leave, whatever.” Dennis waves him off.

The guy hesitates, looking at Mac for a long moment, but Mac doesn’t take his eyes off of Dennis. The guy finally goes, slipping around Dennis in the doorway because he doesn’t move either. He shuts the apartment door behind him.

“What are you doing here?” Mac repeats. “Did you – are you – ?”

His eyes flick to the suitcase on the floor and back up to Dennis’s face. Dennis moves into the apartment properly now, crossing to where Mac’s still frozen. He has the sense to stay a few feet away.

“Yeah, I’m back,” he says. He’s got what looks like his easy smile on his face, but it doesn’t quite seem authentic. He’s got a look in his eyes like he’s praying Mac won’t ask questions, like Mac will just let this slide on by as though nothing happened, the way he always has with everything else.

Well, fuck that, and _fuck_ Dennis.

“You can’t keep screwing me like this,” Mac mutters.

Dennis’s brows pull together. “What? Screwing you?”

“Yeah,” says Mac, louder now. He finally reanimates, waving his arm to gesture around, building up steam. “You – you always do this! You always pull some fucking stupid shit and act like it’s just supposed to be _fine_ when you decide it’s over! Well _fuck_ you!”

“Excuse me?”

“You fucked off! For a year, you fucked off! Where the hell have you been, man? And you just decide that after not calling or letting _anyone_ know, that you’re through with it? That you don’t have to – to what, live with your own shitty decisions anymore? Well _we_ had to! I had to!”

“Mac, calm down,” says Dennis levelly. He steps closer, reaches out like he’s going to touch him, but Mac recoils. Dennis swallows visibly and lets his hands drop, but he takes another step closer to him anyway. Mac can feel the heat of his presence like a physical vibration in the air. “Mac, I know I messed up. I was wrong, I was so wrong.”

“Yeah,” says Mac, shakily. “Yeah, I – Go on. Say more.”

“I thought I could – could be someone else, someone I thought I should be. I was wrong, though, okay? I was wrong. I’ve broken everything off now, I came clean.”

“But why even go in the first place?”

“Everything was just happening so fast and I got scared, okay. I was scared – you came out and I just – I didn’t – ”

“Woah, what? So this is my fault now?” Mac glares. Of all the excuses, he can’t believe Dennis is going with this one. “You couldn’t stand to be around me now that I’m gay? I knew it, I knew you were pulling back. I just can’t believe you really are that big of a – ”

“No, Mac!” Dennis waves his hands around to shut him up, then runs them back through his hair, looking frustrated. Well, good. It’s nothing to how Mac feels right now, like it’s his fault that his best friend fled the city and fucked up everything.

“Well then what was it, Dennis?” Mac shouts, throwing his hands in the air. “What had you so scared about me coming out that you had to _run away_? I mean, who does that anyway? What did you think, I wouldn’t be able to control all my fucking feelings for you when we were alone or something?”

“I just – I didn’t know how to – ”

“Spit it out!” Mac says, practically stamping his foot. He doesn’t know when he moved closer, but he’s right in Dennis’s face now as he yells at him. Mac really thinks that, in this moment, he hates everything about him. “Jesus Christ, dude, this is the shittiest lie I’ve ever heard! What the hell is scaring you so bad, huh? What makes you think there’s any excuse for what you did, what makes you think I even give a shit?”

“Mac,” Dennis says, shouting to be heard over him, “Mac!”

“You’ve _always_ done _all_ the talking! You don’t get to just come back here and boss me around again, like nothing’s happened! How about, for the first time in twenty-five goddamn years, you man up and tell me what the hell you’re actually _thinking_ , why don’t you – ”

Dennis closes the last inch of space between them and kisses Mac, hard. Right on the lips. Mac breaks off his tirade with a strange, high noise and grabs automatically at Dennis’s face with both hands.

Dennis’s kiss is a fight, like everything between them is, but this time Mac isn’t sure that they’re fighting to see who’s the winner. He isn’t sure what they’re fighting about now.

Mac’s had a lot of kisses before but this is different, it’s sweeter than victory could ever taste. Mac’s starting to think maybe it’s not fighting that they’re doing after all. He’s never had Dennis more vulnerable in his hands, not once.

Dennis shifts his body closer and sighs, and Mac tilts his head to better capture his open mouth. The tips of Dennis’s fingertips touch Mac’s cheek.

Mac pulls away, blinking hard. Dennis doesn’t open his eyes for a long, stilted second, and when he does, he looks confused. Mac thinks – well, shit, Dennis has no idea what confused feels like right now.

“What the hell was that?” Mac says. Their mouths are just a sliver of air apart and he whispers it, their lips touching when he forms the words like he’s brushing them there on a breakable canvas.

Dennis touches the corner of Mac’s mouth. Mac can feel his hand is shaking.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Dennis marvels.

Mac doesn’t know what to say to that.

There’s a lot that they have to talk about after this, he thinks, suspended in that space with Dennis where time is both collapsing and expanding all at once; he’ll have to sift through a lot of his own feelings, he’ll have to decide how much anger he’s still harboring. He’ll have to hear the entire story.

But all of that can wait until _after this_.

Mac pulls him back in on an intake of breath. Dennis melts against him, spreads his hands against Mac’s chest, and he sounds so fucking happy when he breathes out. Mac’s heart squeezes hard in his chest until it feels like he can’t swallow, can’t even inhale. It’s the best feeling he’s ever had, suffocating to death right there in the middle of his apartment.

Dennis’s fingers creep around Mac’s ribs, warming everywhere they touch. Mac presses Dennis back with his entire body until he’s backed up against the couch, and Dennis sits down hard on the arm of it, apparently just as satisfied with Mac towering over him as he was to have them in equal stature. Mac presses down on Dennis’s chin with one thumb, and Dennis opens his mouth wider the next time they kiss. Mac presses his tongue, gently and tentatively, against Dennis’s.

Dennis pulls back not even a centimeter, panting. Mac kisses him harder, and Dennis groans this time when Mac’s tongue meets his own. Mac spreads his hands out over Dennis’s shoulders and down his sides, pressing his palms into the tops of Dennis’s thighs. They fall open even more like on instinct. A rush of heat goes through Mac’s blood.

“What the fuck are we doing?” Mac laughs against Dennis’s mouth, fingers itching to undo the button on Dennis’s shirt that they’re currently playing with.

“I have no idea,” Dennis breathes back, serious as anything, as he weaves his hand back through Mac’s hair and brings him back into a proper kiss. He moves his free hand over Mac’s on his shirt, and Mac starts to actually undo it with both hands, fingers trembling.

Mac pauses after Dennis’s shirt is open. He wants to put his hands everywhere, but he has a better idea first.

“Why are you stopping?” Dennis asks when Mac pulls away. His brow is furrowed and he looks – irritated. Mac smiles, he can’t help himself. Dennis looks even more frustrated at the reaction.

“This is our apartment,” Mac explains, reaching for Dennis’s hand, his chest warming when Dennis lets him take it without complaint. “We don’t have to be on this couch. Come on.”

Dennis stands up again. Mac’s been sleeping in Dennis’s room all year, since his is still technically a workout room, so he leads them to that bedroom instead and shuts the door.

Almost before they’re fully locked away, Dennis presses him hard back against the wall and kisses him again, fingers fumbling with Mac’s t-shirt when he pulls it over his head. As soon as he’s free of it, Mac moves back in toward him. It’s like there’s fire touching every limb, every extremity, and he can’t get close enough to Dennis to put it out. Dennis, letting his open button-up fall off his shoulders and wrapping his arms around Mac’s neck in one quick move, seems to be feeling something awfully similar.

Dennis’s hands land on Mac’s thighs, right on the side of his jeans so his fingertips curl in and press into the sides of his ass. Mac presses closer on instinct; Dennis’s fingers fumble on the front buttons on his jeans, unzip and push them down his thighs. Mac steps away, trips away, fumbling his way out of them. Dennis watches him, eyes dark. He seems a lot steadier as he does the same with his own, but Mac can hear the deep, uneven tempo of his breathing.

Dennis shoves him by the shoulders back on the bed, falling over with him because Mac wraps his hands around his forearms and pulls him on top of him.

“Get your fucking boxers off, you fucker,” says Dennis, biting down on Mac’s lip. Mac forgets what he said immediately and presses his fingertips into Dennis’s sides, shifting him more comfortably into the space between his spread legs.

“Mac, you piece of shit.”

Dennis is smiling when he sits up and slides off the bed onto the floor; Mac lifts himself up to watch Dennis pull his boxers off before throwing them to the ground next to himself. He drops his own down when he stands and steps out of them, and Mac pulls him in by the waist when he starts to climb back onto the mattress.

“Wow, you’ve been practicing,” Dennis says, shuffling forward into his lap, his knees on either side of Mac’s thighs.

Mac leans in to grab his ass and haul him closer. Dennis laughs and sets his hands on Mac’s shoulders, chest arching in toward Mac’s.

“I’ve had a busy year,” says Mac. He leans in and brushes a light kiss to Dennis’s collarbone, and Dennis rocks in and slips his arms around Mac’s neck, Mac lets his tongue trail upward toward his throat, a slow and lazy trail upwards. Dennis sighs and sits back.

Mac grins. “Where do you think you’re going?”

He wraps his arms around Dennis’s waist and turns them, sliding him down onto his back so he towers over him. Dennis grabs his face in both hands and leans up to capture his lips again; Mac grins into the kiss and bears down on him, opening his mouth to deepen it. Before he can, Dennis pushes his tongue into Mac’s mouth and Mac has to meet it instead of initiate.

Dennis goes right for the throat as usual, metaphorically and otherwise; he presses his lips against a soft spot beneath his jaw, and at the same time snakes his hand between them and cups Mac’s cock with it.

“Enjoying yourself?” Dennis asks, smiling against his skin.

“Yes,” Mac says, unabashedly jerking his hips toward Dennis’s static hand. “We’ve only been putting it off of for our whole entire lives.”

Dennis shakes his head. “Fuck you,” he says, and his face is still tucked away but Mac can hear the smile in his voice.

Mac kisses him again, open-mouthed and intense, and Dennis quietly moans against him. He starts to jerk Mac off in smooth, slow motions, and Mac rocks his hips into his hand, unabashed – for once. He’s never been allowed to be this free with Dennis, and it’s something earth-shattering that he can do this now, can move their tongues together and shamelessly drag his cock against Dennis’s palm and whisper things like _“Dennis, please, I wanna be inside you.”_

And it’s new, too – to have Dennis suck on his neck until they’re both sure it will bruise, to have Dennis breathe out his name and say back other things, things like, _“Please”_ in response, things like _“I’ve been waiting for this”_ when Mac grabs the lube and slathers his fingers with it and teases all around Dennis’s hole with it. He’s had practice, and maybe that should piss either of them off, when it was only ever meant to be the two of them together from the very beginning. But Mac believes in God more than he believes in fate and he thinks that he would rather they be here together, now, than have things turn out any other way.

“Fuck me,” Dennis whispers, half-gasps, wrapping his arms around Mac’s neck as his knees fall open around Mac’s waist.

Somehow, still, Mac is the one shivering when he starts to fuck Dennis with two fingers, the way he’s learned how to from a year apart and experimenting with other men. He doesn’t know what Dennis has been doing all this time, but he knows that Dennis arches his chest up toward Mac’s when he presses his fingers inside him just right, he knows that Dennis whispers his name like the most beautiful fucking prayer when Mac kisses his lips and his collar and the dip in between his ribs.

“Are you okay?” Mac asks, hovering above him. Their chests are both heaving and they touch when their breathing synchronizes for a moment, sending electric shocks through Mac’s blood.

Dennis seems to understand what he means. He nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, Mac. I’m okay.”

And Mac, burying his face in Dennis neck, thinks that _okay_ doesn’t even begin to cover it. He thinks that Dennis is feeling more than okay, just the same way that he is, when he lines up his cock and presses it inside of him. They both groan, loudly in the otherwise quiet apartment. Dennis is digging his fingers into Mac’s arms, then his shoulders, then raking his nails down his back; the tops of Mac’s thighs hit the back of his and they both pause, breathing harder than before.

After a moment, Dennis captures his mouth again in a blind kiss. They move their lips together, and then Mac begins moving his hips, too. He starts with long, slow movements, dragging the moans out of Dennis until he knows exactly where to thrust inside him to get the sounds he wants.

Every man he’s been with is like a study in sensuality, but Dennis is something different. He doesn’t fit the patterns Mac has learned to obey, and he doesn’t like it slow, either; he digs his nails into Mac’s shoulder and grunts out, “Fuck, harder, _harder_ ,” until Mac is fucking into him with more speed than accuracy, but Dennis seems to love it.

The first time Mac’s name rips out of Dennis’s chest, it’s like the first time he dreamed of God – only, somehow, infinitely better. Mac kisses him hard in response, unable to think of any other way to express the stars that just began bursting in his chest. Dennis twists his hands in Mac’s hair and kisses back just as fiercely, almost as though he’s feeling the exact same thing.

“Tell me again,” Mac says, lifting himself up on both hands so he can see Dennis’s face as they do this, this thing that’s been building up between them for as long as he can possibly remember. It’s better than he imagined.

“Tell you what?” Dennis grunts out. Mac supposes it’s hard to talk when his head is thrown back like that, his neck arched so far it must be difficult to make his voice work. Mac touches the bulge of his Adam’s apple and waits until Dennis untenses, laying back on the pillow, looking at him.

“Tell me what you said before,” Mac says. “About…what you said when you kissed me.”

A sly look comes over Dennis’s face. “I don’t remember,” he says.

“Shut up,” Mac says, pinching his side. Dennis laughs, but it quickly turns into a groan when Mac jerks his cock right over his prostate. Already, he’s learned this; like everything about Dennis, it comes naturally and unexpectedly and confusedly to him.

Dennis looks more serious suddenly, schooling his features into something that’s no longer a tease. It’s a strange expression on him, Mac thinks fleetingly, before Dennis touches the tips of his fingers against the edge of Mac’s mouth.

“I’m in love with you,” Dennis says solemnly.

Mac swallows against a sudden lump in his throat. He thinks it might be the same words reflected back, lodged there; he doesn’t know why it’s suddenly so difficult to say. He’s been tracing the words into Dennis’s skin with every touch and look and word since the day they first met.

Dennis touches the side of his face with one palm, and Mac closes his eyes, leaning into it. Just for a moment, his hips falter. Then he opens his eyes and thrusts even harder inside him, picking the rhythm back up, relentless and hard.

“I love you,” Mac says, his eyes wide and he thinks it would be almost overwhelming, except Dennis said it first. “You know that.”

Dennis’s expression is blank for a moment. Mac’s heart misses a beat. Then Dennis breaks into a smile like the rising sun and says,

“I know you do.” He licks his lips, then wraps a hand around Mac’s neck and brings him close. Before their mouths connect, Dennis holds him back and says, “Tell me again.”

Mac groans. His hips lose their rhythm but he doesn’t stop fucking him hard, fast, exactly how he wants him.

“I fucking love you,” Mac whispers, just a breath against his lips. “I love you, Dennis.”

Dennis laughs, not meanly, not loudly. Just content.

“I know,” he says, and he pulls on Mac’s neck again and brings their mouths together properly.

Mac groans into the kiss. When Dennis gently touches his side, Mac complies wordlessly, more willing to move with this new, gentle Dennis than he would with brute force. Dennis pushes him onto his side and Mac takes the new angle in stride; when Dennis rolls over, his back against Mac’s chest, Mac hefts his leg over Mac’s and presses his cock back inside him and wraps his arm over Dennis’s torso at the same time, enjoying the newfound closeness and the way that Dennis’s moans are rumbling right into his own chest.

“But now I can’t see your face,” he grumbles into Dennis’s neck.

Dennis laughs. “You know exactly how I look right now,” he says, and he’s right: Whether through sex tapes or just plain fantasy, Mac knows _exactly_ how Dennis looks now, relaxed and wrapped up in someone he loves and with pleasure radiating all throughout his body.

Someone he loves. The thought almost makes his head reel – that that’s really _him_. Actually, he’s not sure he’s seen that look at all before tonight.

Dennis takes Mac’s hand in his own, and he thinks he’s going to tangle their fingers together but instead he brings Mac’s palm over his cock and takes his own hand away. Mac complies, wrapping his fingers properly over Dennis’s dick and starting to pull. He won’t lie about this either, that he knows just how to please him like this – he’s seen the sex tapes, stumbled by him in the bathroom, saw him all the times they jerked off together watching porn when they lived with Dee. God, he can’t believe they ever convinced themselves that they didn’t want this. With every bone in his body, he wants this.

Dennis is groaning, jerking forward into Mac’s hand as it speeds up to just how Dennis likes it, then back on his cock as it disappears inside Dennis, jolting right up against his sweet spot on every pass. Dennis’s moans are somehow better now, grunted out right against his ear when Dennis lays his head back on Mac’s shoulder and lets them loose.

“Make me come,” Dennis whispers, his lips right by Mac’s ear. “Make me come, baby —”

Mac groans and speeds up his hand on Dennis’s cock. He wants this, almost more than he wants his own orgasm – he wants to feel Dennis come, their bodies all wrapped up together so he feels what Dennis feels, so he _hears_ it when Dennis comes, because of him, _because of him_ –

He jerks Dennis’s cock faster, and speeds up the rhythm of his own hips so they’re in time with each other. Dennis is moaning shamelessly now, all his noises let out into the air around them. He’s jerking his ass back so it meets Mac’s hips on every single thrust. Mac blindly, instinctively, presses his lips against Dennis’s neck and kisses there, aimlessly, sometimes sucking on and biting at his skin so that he might leave a mark. The thought sends shivers down his spine and makes him thrust into Dennis even harder, even faster. He feels so fucking content right now, so hot all over – all he wants is to come, and to make Dennis feel the exact thing he’s feeling right now.

Dennis reaches back to dig his nails into Mac’s thigh. He can feel it when he breaks skin, and he digs his own nails on his free hand into the sensitive skin on Dennis’s inner thigh. Dennis gasps, his eyes slipping shut, and Mac twists his hand on his cock just the way he likes it, drives his own cock deep inside him until he bumps up against his sweet spot, and he grinds it there.

Dennis chokes on Mac’s name when he comes, reaching back to tug hard on Mac’s hair. Mac grunts with the force of it, but he lets him pull on it because he’s rocking his hips back so sweetly into the cradle of Mac’s own as he comes, over and over until the sheets are wet and so is Dennis’s chest and then Mac’s too, when Mac pulls out and he turns around and kisses him, open-mouthed, Dennis’s tongue flicking out against his.

They make out lazily for a moment as Dennis comes down, Mac petting through his hair, Dennis’s hands roaming all over Mac’s side and his back. It’s doing nothing to stem the hard-on he’s still got, rocking his hips helplessly and shamelessly against Dennis’s thigh, smearing precome on him and not giving a single fuck about it.

Dennis smiles against his lips.

“Come on, baby boy,” he whispers, and he reaches his hand down between them and starts to jerk Mac off. It’s surprisingly good; Mac guesses he wasn’t the only one watching and learning during all the time they spent shut up in the back office together, watching porn and pretending they weren’t watching each other (watching each other and pretending it didn’t mean anything).

Mac groans, tucking his face into his neck. Dennis laughs breathlessly by his ear and Mac strains toward him. Dennis’s come is all over his chest now too, but he just wraps his arms around Dennis and thrusts his hips up toward his hand, close to the edge and wanting to fall over it with him.

Dennis grabs Mac’s ass with his free hand, hauling him in closer, and Mac loses it; he moans, loud and long into Dennis’s neck, and his hips keep stuttering up toward Dennis’s hand, which hasn’t slowed yet.

Mac blinks back to reality a few seconds after. He realizes that Dennis is holding his face in his hands gently, kissing him sweetly all over the place. His eyelids, his forehead, his cheeks and nose and chin. Mac nudges his face up and captures his lips with his own, and Dennis swipes his thumb across Mac’s cheek.

Mac is breathing hard into their kiss. Dennis doesn’t seem to care, just keeps pressing his mouth down gently as he flattens Mac down onto his back and hovers over him, doing all the work. Mac flattens his hands on Dennis’s back and just holds him.

When Mac’s breathing finally starts to steady, Dennis sits up. After a moment, he does too.

They don’t say anything for a long time. Mac can’t help himself reaching out to touch Dennis’s knee, to run his hand over his thigh, just to make sure he’s real. He’s pretty sure he’s had this exact dream a hundred times already.

Dennis reaches out and traces Mac’s lips with a finger. After a while he moves to draw a line down his cheek, his neck, and over his chest. Mac watches him watch his finger until it falls back into his lap, and then Dennis looks up at him.

“That was a long time coming, huh?” he asks. He’s nervous now, red in the face and scratching at the back of his neck.

Mac just smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “Better than I thought, though.”

Dennis’s brow creases. “Better than you _thought_?” he scoffs.

“I just mean, better than I imagined,” Mac amends, smiling still. “C’mere.”

He shifts onto his back, and Dennis, grumbling, lays down with him, cradled in the crook of his arm. He tucks his face into Mac’s neck and Mac can feel him breathing.

Laying there, comfortable and warm, Mac doesn’t think he ever wants to move again. Fuck the come on the sheets, fuck showers and their friends and any other room but theirs. This is the only place worth being.

And he can’t stop thinking about all the things they did, either, all the stupid shit they did to act like this wasn’t exactly where they wanted to be. The past year – the past thirty years, really. All so fucking stupid. So much fucking time wasted.

“Dennis –”

“Not tonight.” Dennis’s response is quiet, pressed into Mac’s skin. After a moment he raises his head until his face is just an inch away. It looms into focus in the darkening space. He traces his fingers down Mac’s bare side. “Not tonight, baby. Not yet. Please.”

It’s squeezing Mac’s throat like a vice. Looking at Dennis’s face though, cracked open, vulnerable and asking – Mac swallows around the vice and finds he can breathe. He nods.

“Okay,” he whispers, afraid to be too loud in this space they’ve made. He shifts so Dennis lays back down, snug against him. Mac wraps his arm tightly around Dennis, so there’s no confusion about where he wants him. “Okay. Not tonight.”

They don’t fall asleep. They just lay there breathing, like they’re making up for time wasted apart. And maybe they are. But they also have a lifetime in front of them where they will be together, and that’s worth all the mistakes they made before.

**Author's Note:**

> title from [twin size mattress by the front bottoms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1rzsT2t2YY)
> 
> [i'm lesbianfreyja on tumblr :^) check me out for more macdennis and wlw content](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/172421232425)


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